So when was it that English monarchs couldn't just have people killed?

I know in Tudor times they had courts but they seemed to just do what the monarch wanted. So when was it that English monarchs couldn't just have people beheaded?
 
I know in Tudor times they had courts but they seemed to just do what the monarch wanted. So when was it that English monarchs couldn't just have people beheaded?

When the people beheaded the monarch instead ?

Cheers,
Nigel.
 
Beheading was reserved for nobles who committed treason. Most of the rest were made to dangle from a rope then, sometimes, cut down before they died and then drawn and quartered.
 
Technically the mechanism whereby the monarch executed those disloyal to him and seized their land still exists. It is known as an Act (or Bill) of Attainder.

Technically it needs legislative support from Parliament to proceed but practically this was always forthcoming up to James II and 1688.

Parliament could still use an act of attainder to prosecute someone today although it would fall foul of the ECHR which we signed in 1951 but was not legally applicable to English law until 2000.

So I'd say tha last time a monarch had a mechanism for simply executing someone (with the support of Parliament) was 2000.

Looking at it from the other way, the last time a King could arbitarily execute someone without a judgement by his peers was prior to Magna Carta in 1215

Don't you just love our unwritten constitution
 
Looking at it from the other way, the last time a King could arbitarily execute someone without a judgement by his peers was prior to Magna Carta in 1215

I don't know, given Britain's early political evolution before that I'm wondering if it ever was possible period the same way it was in some other places.
 
Technically the mechanism whereby the monarch executed those disloyal to him and seized their land still exists. It is known as an Act (or Bill) of Attainder.

Technically it needs legislative support from Parliament to proceed but practically this was always forthcoming up to James II and 1688.

Parliament could still use an act of attainder to prosecute someone today although it would fall foul of the ECHR which we signed in 1951 but was not legally applicable to English law until 2000.

So I'd say tha last time a monarch had a mechanism for simply executing someone (with the support of Parliament) was 2000.

Looking at it from the other way, the last time a King could arbitarily execute someone without a judgement by his peers was prior to Magna Carta in 1215

Don't you just love our unwritten constitution

Awesome info. Theoretically does this, or did it at one time, also apply to citizens of the various Commonwealth countries then formally under the Crown?
 
Awesome info. Theoretically does this, or did it at one time, also apply to citizens of the various Commonwealth countries then formally under the Crown?

Yep.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=262134

Pedantically speaking, the U.K., Canada and Australia are not democracies, as they don't have elected popular control over their governments and militaries.

They are democracies de facto not de jure.

On paper at least , that 86-year-old grandmother with the bad teeth still has the power to have a random citizen dragged out of their house and drawn and quartered. All she has to do is get the prime minister to counter-sign the paper.
 
As an Australian I reluctantly acknowledge the distinction :).

That being said perhaps its an indication how unimportant a de jure democracy is considering we would be amongst the happiest people on earth (although judging by our current political climate you wouldn't think so).
 
Argh, wrote a long post on this and then promptly lost it...

Anyhow, Magna Carta establishes the right to due process in English law, and 1798 marks the last successful Bill of Attainder, so depending on what counts as 'having people killed', that's effectively our window.

I'd argue that the last time an English Monarch could arbitrarily order somebody executed and be able to expect Parliament to go along with it without too much question was sometime in the 1620s, around the death of James I and the accession of Charles I. Before that, Parliament more or less did what it was told, but after that it was the one that took the initiative on such matters. It's instructive that the only Acts of Attainder passed in Charles I's reign were actually introduced by Parliament and designed to get rid of the King's allies; the 1641 attainder of the Earl of Strafford was effectively judicial murder on Parliament's part, as was the impeachment and later attainder of Archbishop Laud.

When we've got to the stage where the King is forced to sign the death warrant for his own close friend and ally, I think we can say that the Crown had effectively lost the ability to have people killed; and while there are later examples of Attainder, it's worth noting that they were intiated by Parliament, rather than the Monarch, even in those cases where the Crown clearly approved of the decision.

But as with all these things with British constitution, it's all based on custom; there's an awful lot of things that the Crown can technically do that in reality would never happen.
 
As an Australian I reluctantly acknowledge the distinction :).

That being said perhaps its an indication how unimportant a de jure democracy is considering we would be amongst the happiest people on earth (although judging by our current political climate you wouldn't think so).


Theoretically the Third Reich was a de jure democracy, as on paper Hitler's powers were conferred by the Reichstag.

I believe much the same was true of Stalin's Russia.
 
I could be wrong here, but I think the last monarch to order an execution, or rather got the judge to do the sentencing, was James II of England/VII of Scotland. James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of the late King Charles II, was executed along with some of his supporters in his failed rebellion against James in 1685. James used the rebellion as a pretext to repeal the Test Act and Habeas Corpus. Parliament would oppose this initiatives, which resulted in James dismissing them in the same year.
 
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I could be wrong here, but I think the last monarch to order an execution, or rather got the judge to do the sentencing, was James II of England/VI of Scotland. James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of the late King Charles II, was executed along with some of his supporters in his failed rebellion against James in 1685. James used the rebellion as a pretext to repeal the Test Act and Habeas Corpus. Parliament would oppose this initiatives, which resulted in James dismissing them in the same year.


I think Monmouth had been attainted by Parliament when he first landed.

I do, however, str a story about James' grandfather and namesake. When James I (aka James VI of Scotland) was on his way down to London in 1603, he was told that a pickpocket had been caught plying his trade among the crowd. He promptly ordered the man hanged out of hand, and was rather put out when the English officials insisted that there had to be a trial first.
 
When we've got to the stage where the King is forced to sign the death warrant for his own close friend and ally, I think we can say that the Crown had effectively lost the ability to have people killed; and while there are later examples of Attainder, it's worth noting that they were intiated by Parliament, rather than the Monarch, even in those cases where the Crown clearly approved of the decision.


You know, this is making it hard for me to view Charles as being on the cusp of creating an absolutist monarchy in 1620s England.
 
Yep.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=262134

Pedantically speaking, the U.K., Canada and Australia are not democracies, as they don't have elected popular control over their governments and militaries.

They are democracies de facto not de jure.

On paper at least , that 86-year-old grandmother with the bad teeth still has the power to have a random citizen dragged out of their house and drawn and quartered. All she has to do is get the prime minister to counter-sign the paper.

huh? No she doesn't.

There are many prerogative powers available to the Crown, but dragging random citizens out of the their houses and killing them is not one of them. There is the prerogative power to keep the peace, but that would hardly cover this example.

Furthermore, since the GCHQ case in 1985, the courts can exercise judicial review over any use of prerogative powers if the area in justiciable.

And what do you mean they don't have popular control over their governments?
 
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